Articulation / Language Disorders in Children

Expressive Language Disorder: Children with an expressive language disorder may understand spoken communication, but demonstrate difficulty expressing their thoughts and ideas. They may demonstrate difficulty making a connection between words and ideas. Expressive language symptoms include reduce sentence length, poor story recall, improper sentence structure, poor word choice, difficulty retrieving words and poor use of grammatical rules.

Receptive Language Delay: Children with receptive language delays demonstrate difficulty understanding language. Disordered skills can include following simple and complex directions, understanding grammatical rules, sustaining attention, and following details of a story.

Oral Motor: Children with oral motor deficits demonstrate difficulty chewing, blowing, and sucking due to muscle tone and reduced mouth movements. Children with oral motor disorder frequently drool, have a flaccid facial appearance, breath with their mouth open, have slurred speech and difficulty swallowing or using a straw.

Fluency: Stuttering or dysfluent speech is characterized by the disruptions in normal speech flow. Speech is often halting and can include repetitions (“My, my, my, dog Bailey”), fillers (“Um”) and prolongation of speech sounds (H-h-h-h-h-h-is shoes are under the sofa). In severe cases, secondary physical characteristics may be observed (laryngeal tension, eye blinking, foot stomping).